Glenmont is the only station on the Red Line to feature the six-coffer arch design. The six-coffer design is also seen on the Green Line. Glenmont is also unique in that it is the only underground terminus station on the system. Until 2006, Glenmont was also the only station in the system lit with sodium lamps, which gave the station a warm orange glow. These sodium lamps were replaced with the mercury vapor lamps found in other underground stations. The Glenmont rail yard is located just beyond this station, with the ability to store 132 rail cars.[citation needed]

There are two entrances for access to Glenmont station. They are on both sides of Georgia Avenue (MD-97). Unlike older Metro stations, there are two street elevators, though there is only one platform elevator. Many Metrobus routes serve the station.[3]

There is a car-storage lot just north of the station on a lot that was purchased by the county for the proposed Foxhall Elementary School and Layhill Junior High School, neither of which were built.[4]

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Glenmont was planned to be the location of the end of a line in the original layout of the Metrorail system that was approved in 1968.[5] Two months later, the Glenmont Vicinity Citizens Association and several other citizens' groups attempted to have the line end at Silver Spring instead because they did not want the added development and they thought the extended lines would be too expensive.[6] There were also concerns that the line would eventually be extended to Olney, which would change its rural character.[7][8] The House Interior Appropriates Subcommittee was not convinced, and the plan went along unchanged.[6] At the time, the station was planned to open in 1979.[9]

As of 1970, the site for building the station was vacant land zoned for residential use and owned by Georgia Avenue Baptist Church.[9] Safeway wanted to build a supermarket on the site,[10] and it petitioned the county to change the site from residential to commercial zoning in 1970.[9] Metro had not planned to purchase the land until 1975.[11] WMATA protested, saying that rezoning would add $750,000 to the value of the land, which would increase its costs when it later needed to purchase the land.[9] WMATA could not purchase the land at the time because engineering studies determining the exact placement of the station had not yet been completed and, regardless, it had not appropriated the funds to purchase the land yet.[9] Metro asked Montgomery County to purchase the land to hold for its eventual use, but the county declined when WMATA could not guarantee that engineering studies would later find the site suitable for the station.[12] Because the surrounding land was already classified as commercial and because WMATA would not need the land for the station for at least eight more years, the Montgomery County Council said it had no authority to decline the rezoning request.[9] Days later, a deal was struck, whereas WMATA pledged to purchase the land within three years, Montgomery County would reserve the land for WMATA, and Georgia Avenue Baptist Church would not be required to pay property tax on the land.[12]

In May 1977, Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams questioned extending the Red Line to Glenmont, citing the increased costs projected after engineers determined that the bedrock required building the tracks much deeper than had been anticipated.[13] Under pressure from the Office of Management and Budget and President Jimmy Carter's administration,[14] Adams requested that the line be studied again to determine whether a bus, trolley, or highway would be a good alternative to extending the red line to Glenmont.[15] Montgomery County Executive James P. Gleason responded, saying that the line had been studied extensively already, and he considered pulling all county funding from building the Metrorail system if the Glenmont extension did not go forward.[16]

By June, a compromise had been reached; cost-cutting measures would be studied, but the Red Line would indeed be extended to Glenmont.[17] The following month, Gleason decided to withhold all funding to WMATA until the Department of Transportation guaranteed in writing that the Metrorail extension to Glenmont would be built.[14] The Montgomery County Council voted in disagreement with Gleason's decision, thinking that the action might also jeopardize the Metrorail extension to Shady Grove, but the Council did not actually have the power to force him to send the money to WMATA.[14] Maryland Secretary of Transportation Hermann Intemann also decided to withhold state funding to WMATA until Adams guaranteed the line would be built.[18]

In October, consultants suggested building Forest Glen and Wheaton stations as two small, separated tubes, rather than using one large cavernous design that had been used for nearly every other underground station.[19] The consultants said that changing the design of those two stations would save $352.6 million.[19] Glenmont station would still be built with the cavernous underground design.[19] Gleason praised the study because it saved significant money without sacrificing the stations,[19] and he decided to release Montgomery County's construction funding after plans surfaced for a study by region-wide task force.[20] In February 1978, the Department of Transportation approved engineering studies of the Glenmont line extension, which suggesting it was warming to building the line after all.[21] The study by a regionwide task force ended up approving the routing of stations on other Metrorail lines but it did not review the routing of the red line at all.[22] In August, WMATA board members approved a Metrorail plan that included building the Glenmont extension as the latter phase of a two-phase construction schedule.[23] WMATA released the plan to the Department of Transportation.[24]

In July 1979, Adams released all held-up federal funding for all of Metrorail's lines.[25] With all federal construction delays resolved, the Glenmont metro station was scheduled to open in 1986.[25] By 1982, the station's opening was rescheduled to 1991.[26]

In 1984, President Reagan's administration limited the number of miles of track that could be built, effectively preventing the extending the red line from Wheaton to Glenmont.[27] Later that year, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to lift the construction limitation.[28] The Reagan administration continued to block federal funding, and opening of the Glenmont station was pushed back to 1994.[29] In 1985, the Office of Management and Budget recommended halting all federal funding of construction, further jeopardizing the Glenmont extension.[30] In 1991, Congress approved construction funding, and WMATA said the Glenmont station was scheduled to open in 1998.[31]

President Bill Clinton's administration approved funding of the Glenmont extension in 1993.[32] WMATA broke ground on construction of the station in 1993,[33] and workers began laying rail lines in 1996.[34] The station opened on July 25, 1998.[35]